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The Block of the Writer

First off, I’ve had writer’s block before, and this really isn’t it. Writer’s Block is usually a perceptual crisis where nothing seems to fit right and no way forward can be seen, and thus paralysis sets in.

Okay, so maybe what I have is writer’s block. A form of it anyway.

The diet seems to consist mainly of despair these days, and if you don’t understand why this is, you are A) Lucky or B) Not paying attention, or both. Everything is burning or falling apart or getting shot and in an atmosphere like that, you start to wonder if something like watching movies and gassing about them for a thousand words or two actually matters in any way.

This is, I suppose, an existential crisis that all writers – and other artists – go through at some time. “Is there a point to what I am doing?”

Now, I’ve carved out a minor career in examining the pointless, absurd, and disposable – it’s inevitable that I’d eventually consider that career to be pointless, absurd and disposable – because it is. But it’s my piece of the turf. It’s what I do. I keep trying to return to it, but again: it’s currently a grind setting off sparks against a much bigger grind. I don’t expect this to be permanent – it hasn’t the other times it’s happened. But that could also just be the psychic equivalent of thinking that chest pain will go away, because it has every other time.

I do really miss yanking the page out and crumpling it while screaming “GARBAGE! IT’S ALL GARBAGE!”

I’ve had my experiences with depression and this is similar to a worrisome degree; the major difference is this time I’m medicated and able to function better (and in the Paying Attention category, you know there are forces at work trying to take that away from me). And that adds a new wrinkle into the current Block: do my meds dull my creative spark, or whatever the hell it is that drives me to link words together in a semi-coherent and hopefully entertaining manner?

There have been essays about all the great writers who were also addicts in one way or another and think yeaaaaah probably not. Did Hemingway need booze to write? If Coleridge’s doctor had not prescribed Laudanum for rheumatism, would we still have Rime of the Ancient Mariner or Kubla Khan? That one, at least is easy to refute – he wrote both before he became addicted. Writing is a complex, solitary chore – more people choose to not do it than do.

I hit a point recently where I ran out of my happy pills and couldn’t afford the refill (this period is now luckily past) and I found out that one of my other addictions filled in somewhat, and that is the fidget spinner.

Oh, so much digital ink has been spilled on these things! Teachers hate them! Boing Boing loves them! Allow me to fill up some space about them, and maybe bust through this writing blockade.

If you have not yet encountered the fidget spinner, welcome back from Mars, I look forward to seeing your slides. This picture is the most common style: usually three arms spinning around a central base with a bearing. Each arm usually has another bearing, so when you get tired of spinning around the center. there is another way to fiddle with them. There is apparently an entire subset of YouTube tutorials for tricks with them.

These were the big fad in schools last Spring. Teachers I know shared pictures of all the spinners they had confiscated at the end of the year. When I had first heard of them, they were being marketed as an aid to students with autism or ADHD. Whatever else you may call them, that does not cover most of the kids in public schools; so yeah, they’re a distraction in those settings. In my day (*cough cough*) the schoolhouse craze was a lot noisier and more dangerous:

Ladies and gentlemen, that shit could explode on you in a cloud of supposedly high-impact acrylic shrapnel. Spinners at least are quiet and non-explosive. You will recall the autism/ADHD claims; my wife runs a private school for children with learning disabilities (ADHD among them) and used some spinners during testing. The improvement was dramatic – then, this is the actual setting for their intended use.

So. given that the fad has created a famine of the things in local stores, and looking to get a supply for her school, she gets in a package of several from a website that seems to be the Walmart of Chinese vendors, and hands me one and I fall in love.

If you’ve interacted with me for any length of time in fleshspace, you know that I am a thumb-twiddler. It’s something I do while idle without realizing it. That’s one of the reasons I try to avoid clicky-pens – I can get really annoying with the dang things. I run audio for live broadcasts of City meetings, and there is one guy I want to take the pen from and hand him a spinner. Much quieter.

Oh, all right, the website is Wish dot com. It’s not like I get any referral fees or anything. Given that a recent trip to NYC revealed that spinners go for $15.99 or so, waiting a few weeks for a $1 spinner to make it over from China seems reasonable. Because I got really interested in the many forms of the device. Especially the ones that look kinda dangerous.

This is the first one I bought, and still my favorite. I was wondering about how the gears would interact with the spinning, and the answer is, they don’t. But when you get bored of spinning – it happens – you can turn the gears manually, a variation on spinning from the arms rather than the center. It’s a little bigger and clunkier than most spinners, and feels more comfortable in my hand. Also, most of the spinners I’ve encountered are metallic, and this one is almost entirely plastic.

Now look at this sucker. Just look at it. This is one I simply could not avoid owning. I posted it on Instagram with the caption “My new spinner is here! Unfortunately, it also came with ancient, unrelenting evil.” This is the most dangerous one I own so far, and not just because it looks like a prop from a Full Moon movie. My fidgeting usually takes the form of holding it in my left hand, and my middle finger doing the spinning. Those flanges on the bat wings can hurt, especially since it’s metal and fairly heavy. Also slightly smaller than the steampunk one above, and not as comfortable in my hand.

Next to arrive is this beauty. Instagram caption: “To combat the spinner full of ancient evil, I got one filled with ancient pseudoscience.” My first disc spinner, and I find that form doesn’t jibe with me at all – my usual practice of spinning with the same hand’s middle finger doesn’t work well. It’s a two-handed spinner. But it’s also metal and beautiful. Maybe I can wear it as an oversized medallion or something. Doesn’t bode well for enthusiastic use of the Captain America’s shield spinner that’s on its way, but come on. That purchase was necessary.

And I still haven’t gotten into the really dangerous-looking ones, the ones that are obviously re-purposed shuriken or look like the little brother of the Glaive from Krull.

That was a thousand words on gewgaws that no one will remember existed in ten years. Guess I can still write, after all.

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Dying laughing here, mister. That clacking ball video brought me back to the times I did see a few explode when someone got too crazy with the swinging. Those spinners I see everywhere in the city (not at $16, though). I like those fancier ones you’ve collected and now wonder when someone will reboot the Hellraiser franchise with Lament Configuration fidget spinners before the craze really dies down…